How do you feel about the fandom trying to salvage 06 with remakes and overhauls? I think the efforts are valiant at the least and shows people do see potential in that game. Or maybe the damage is already done?
I started writing a script for a video about this, but I dunno if I’ll finish it.
I think modders have an innate need to fix things like this. Sonic 06 is far from the only game to receive this treatment. I’ve played tons of Codemasters’ FUEL through a mod called ReFueled, which attempts to patch up that crummy game in to something a little more enjoyable. There’s Sikkmod for Doom 3, which in addition to adding tons of amazing modern graphical effects, also enables tons of quality-of-life stuff, like adjusting movement speed, weapon damage, and adding multiple types of persistent flashlights (head mounted, weapon mounted, etc.).
The big one of course is the Knights of the Old Republic 2 mega-mod that restores cut story elements and is so popular that it’s straight up included in the official Steam version of the game by default now.
I think there’s a sense that people like the game, and want more people to be able to like it, too. That was my reason for the knock-down, drag-out arguments behind The Unleashed Project’s S-Ranks, which eventually lead to my own fixer mod, S-Ranks Unleashed. I just wanted people to love Sonic Unleashed like I did, so I fixed it.
The problem with Sonic 06 is that I personally think significant portions of the design document need to be rewritten from scratch. There is no easy bandaid that is going to fix Sonic 06.
In theory, it’s great that there’s so many projects straight up recreating the game in Unity, because it means having the chance to rebuild core elements of the game. But the next problem there is it stops being, like, technological work that a programmer could do and starts being, like, actual game design. You aren’t plugging holes in code, you’re making changes to the user experience, which is a whole separate job.
Which is where the problems arise, I think. Not only are these guys fighting against the innately buggy nature of Sonic 06, they’re creating new problems of their own that they have to solve in tandem.
Best of luck to them.
